This is both my personal learning project and my contribution in the struggle to confront the ongoing Republican/ libertarian assault on rational science and constructive learning, as manifested in their malicious strategic Attacks on Science ~ A collection of articles, scientific resources, plus my own essays and indepth critique of various presentations from unidirectional-skeptics ~ Hopefully a resource for the busy, yet discerning, student who's concerned about the health of our Earth

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Friday, February 24, 2017

Diary 2/24/17 - Personal Truths vs. Universal Truths.

Projects are never finished, we just meet deadlines and I'm out of time. Little rough, but what else is new, still I want to get it out there, it’s an ongoing project and part of it is trying to convey some ideas that I believe are important and that deserve more attention.

Fundamental to my perspective is the appreciation that there is a profound difference between Personal Truths and Universal Truths.

Personal Truths govern matters of the human heart and soul.

Keep in mind that unless you believe in the notion that Earth was created in six days, six thousand years ago, you must realize that humanity’s presence on this Earth is but a minuscule flash in the history of our miraculous planet, which will continue long after we have extinguished ourselves.

Holy Books are shadow plays. They are tribal stories professing personal truths that concern the human condition and our own personal journeys as we proceed through our numbered years while grappling with our inescapable ultimate fate.

Holy books with their colorful imaginations and big expectations are measured in centuries. How can they possibly represent the God of Light and Time, Creation and Love, an entity who’s awareness spans thousands of millions of years and hundreds of thousands of generations of life on this planet?

Human religions speak to the Human Condition. They are real, they are valid, but they are also narcissistic and blind to the greater reality of the natural world that surrounds* us. In fact, the world that created us. (*Guess, not so much anymore, given the population explosion and mega-megalopolis where people are herded together into pens, far removed from the natural world that sustains all of us. That is the biosphere that we are devouring at an unfathomable rate.)

That is the realm of Personal Truths.

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Universal Truthshave to do with physical reality.

God’s stage so to speak.

Universal Truths govern the geophysics and biology that made Earth the boundless cornucopia that humanity was born into not all that many generations ago.

Science is the self-critical system intelligent humans with a thirst for understanding the world around them established in order to keep themselves honest. They have achieved incredible insights because Earth is no trickster, unlike so many of the gods humans obsess over.

The scientific community is composed of intelligent, all around skeptical, (that would include self-skepticism), critical-thinking, informed, competitive individuals spanning the globe and generations.

It always comes down to word plays and distorting reality into what he wants it to be.

Lamar Smith and the GOP contrarian process:

fabricate scandals intent on

demonizing opponents with a,

nonstop injection of hostility,

personal assumption morphed into self-certain facts,

refusing to listen to correcting objective facts,

conjuring paranoid fantasies without evidence,

dependence on fancy-dancing-words and Orwellian Doublespeak,

wants us to believe all these scientists are in on deception,

while ignoring all he finds inconvenient.

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It’s telling the forces that have propped up Rep Lamar Smith have needed to also create a faux climate science community, hermetically sealed against all opposing critique and evidence to retain their hold.

Rep. Lamar Smith writes: “… in order to meet a politically predetermined conclusion.”

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The evidence points to Lamar Smith pursuing his own predetermined conclusions while ignoring all inconvenient climate science.

Lamar Smith's record reveals him to be a passionate partisan, a tea-partier who has long been focused on politicizing and rejecting the scientific process. He and the GOP cling to their global hiatus illusion like scared children to their blankets. It’s disconnected from physical reality.

To be clear, the GOP’s “notion of some global warming hiatus” is the product of a very smooth PR campaign, it is a farce, a figment of the imagination and a gauge of profound ignorance toward our physical planet. At best we were looking at a temperature observation and processing issue.

What they refuse to grasp is that it’s our atmosphere doing all the heavy lifting when it comes to warming our Earth!

That insulating action is happening 24/7/365.25, with accumulating interest, so to speak. Scientists and engineers figured this out to exquisite detail in the 50/60s. We use many modern marvels that depend on the absolute mastery of this radiative reality that keeps our planet livable against a frigid universe.

Rep. Smith and fellow stalwart Republicans, stop refusing to honestly learn about that fundamental ‘first base’ understanding that’s required before any of the rest of it can make sense?

Ignore all the evidence you can. Play all the rhetorical games you can dream up.

Still, the inescapable fact is that at ~180 ppm our planet has ice sheets covering its continents, at ~280ppm we got the nice temperate climate regime that nurtured and enabled our crowded society to evolve. Now we have cranked that atmospheric insulation regulator up past 400ppm and counting. Do the math! One doesn’t need super fine details to ‘get it’ - one simply needs the curiosity and the intellectual honesty god gave all children. Scientists still possess that, while the GOP has lost it to egomania and fear of all they don’t know. Those are not the qualities that make for good leadership.

Where in the world do Republicans get off pretending our massive fossil fuels burning isn’t going to have substantial and disruptive impacts on the natural systems and cycles that we depend on for everything? And that those in turn won’t severely impact human lives and infrastructure that we all depend on?

Bates’ complaint is about archiving procedure. Bates thinks important observation data must be aged like some great wine before it can be made available. It’s the approach of someone who has something to hide. Science is about trying to understand our climate system. Data is for sharing in a timely manner.

Silly rabbit. Bates is the bad guy, with the bad idea. But it’s another straw for the contrarian campaign to embrace, thus this obscure librarian has been embraced by the Republican campaign of scientific confusion and stupefaction and their hero of the moment. YouTube is being bombarded.

As for unresolved data issues, that’s how it is with Earth, Ocean and Satellite data collection which is very complicated with many areas of potential mistakes. That’s why observation instruments keep getting better as the machines and procedures keep getting better by learning from mistakes and refinements based on lessons learned.

At this point the remaining data issues amount to minuscule adjustments to the numbers. This vicious malicious campaign of GOP Doublespeak is disgraceful and should stop being tolerated.

Instead, the dispute appears to reflect long-standing tensions within NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), based in Asheville, North Carolina, over how new data sets are used for scientific research.

…Bates does not directly challenge the conclusions of Karl's study, and (Bates) never formally raised his concerns through internal NOAA mechanisms. …

RECOMMENDED WEBSITES

11/29/2016 I started this blog to debate climate science contrarians, I've done my part, they, the intellectual cowards for their part have run off and hide within their hermetically sealed echo chambers, safe to continue broadcasting more stupidity mixed with anger and hostility rather than constructive learning.

Now this horrendous election. Its changed everything and this blog, not sure where it's going, eventually I need to start another one, one less intent on futility reaching out for what ain't there and more focused on presenting a different perspective for its own sake, and to hell with the rest of it, it's too heart breaking.

I see Dec 19th as a key date. If there isn't serious focused engagement of the public in numbers that surprise everyone, well the oligarch will have their way with us.

Americans need to let Trump know from the gitgo, we do not approve of his con job and he better not get too crazy because he's earned zero good faith or honeymoon considerations. We shall see.

{edited 12/11/2014}

I know there are too many typos, what can I say, eyes aren't what they were, I get rushed, and always did have a thing with transposing…{well, I also hated high school "english" classes... bad call that one.}. Doing the best I can with what I got. Embarrassing though it is, it's better than doing nothing. Besides, it's the issues and reasoning that we should be worrying about.

Though I'm in my own little world here, I'm also constantly learning and evolving and do get occasional feedback and when I reread stuff and find errors or omissions or garbage, I fix it. If it's major I'll acknowledge it with an 'edited' note, minor stuff I don't bother.

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I hardly keep track of Anthony's latest antics (besides, with Sou on the job why bother - can't beat her insights). It's just me over here and I have more important things to do with my precious hours - still now that Anthony's luster has been wearing thin he's put his energy into discovering and honing new fresh faces to carry on the public show of the Republican/Libertarian strategic attack on science.

He seems to have transitioned into a ring-leader, perhaps mentor/coach would be better, producer? At least that's how Mr. Steele and his antics of the past year has gotten me to think about it. So in that regard this blog remains about WUWT's brand of thinking and logic and my struggle to understand the anatomy of the fraud they've perpetrated against mankind. {December 2014}

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ok, now some recommended websites:

This blog was started in April 2013 and is written by an actual scientist so it has a refreshingly serious objective air to it, plus he does a good clear job of explaining complex issues.

Tamino, an acknowledged statistical/mathematical expert of the highest order, at Open Mind also does an excellent job of holding Anthony’s feet to the fire with clearly explained facts and math. Check it out:http://tamino.wordpress.com~ ~ ~

And of course, there is the excellent, most up to date internet depository of climate studies and information for the non-expert public.

Then there's RealClimate.org the scientist's commentary site. Run by working climate scientists intended to help the interested public and journalists sort through the complexities of the climatology. They provide "quick response to developing stories and provide the context" that is too often missing from public media's depiction. {But, you better be serious and have some real science education/understanding under your belt if you want to keep up.}

I remember back in da day, good websites/blogs were few and far between. But over the past years that's been changing to the point that it's impossible to keep up with them all. Here's an incomplete, and long overdue addition to my above list: